“I know where you live—where Satan has his throne.Yet you remain true to My Name.You did not renounce your faith in Me, even in the days of Antipas, My faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives.”

One would not be too far wrong if one said that the Pergamums lived in a place that is hell on Earth, for where Satan lives is hell as many would think figuratively… and many of the Pergamums were indeed heroes of faith, for they did not renounce their faith despite persecution and even the martyrdom of the witness, Antipas.

When you have no knowledge you only have faith, so that the persecution you suffer you suffer as a believer, and for the Pergamums to remain true and not renounce their faith is a credit to them. Power is not given to those who have faith… salvation is given to those who have faith in Jesus’ testimony. And if the faith is the size of a mustard seed, then mountains can be moved and a person can have what he says… that is, prayers are answered because of faith. Power is given only to those who can bear witness, that is, those who not only believe, but also know… those who have seen, heard, touched and tasted of the goodness of the word/words of God. Pergamum had in it believers with one witness mentioned, and in the midst of their persecution they held on and did not renounce their faith.

The Galilean innovation is that our congregations under persecution must not only stand firm in their faith, but also stand firm in their knowledge. Witnesses who have a testimony for Jesus as well as of the word of God. John described the returning saints as the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God.

Once an unbeliever changes to be a believer, discipleship must begin as soon as practicable so that a person not only believes and so is saved, but having received his eternal life because of his belief, will start his eternal life in the now as soon as practicable, for Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.”

No believer is to be left a believer in a Galilean congregation, but all who believe must be given the instruction to come to know the word of God and the opportunity to practise the words of Jesus without delay… so that knowers of the word are made. Unlike the congregations that have descended from Jerusalem where their adherents by and large are taught to expect eternal life to begin after death in Heaven once they have lived a successful moral life and faith, Galileans are to expect to live their eternal life on Earth now, where every day every service allows each and every member to receive knowledge of the Christ and His Father a little more.

The prevention of stagnation by members in the baptismal pool of faith is the best way to keep out the idolatry introduced by the Balaamites and the errors of the Nicolaitans that Jesus hates. For when you do not disciple your people from faith to knowledge by letting them hear and practise the words of Jesus for themselves, yet expect them to love the God they believe in, you have in fact encouraged and given birth to idolatry, for true love cannot come without knowledge. Anyone who loves the person he only believes and has faith in has idolised that person.

Even though the greatest commandments of the law were “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength [might]” and “…love your neighbor as yourself” …these two commands referred to people and God whom the Israelites already knew. The natural context of ‘neighbours’ for the Israelites refers to those who were living next door to them or in the same street… that is, people they knew and were familiar with. As for God, the Israelites came out of Egypt knowing God, for they experienced His miracles of deliverance in Egypt, provision in Sinai and later fulfillment in Canaan. They were a people with whom God dwelt in their midst as a column of fire by night and a cloud by day, and who spoke to them from the mountaintop. As such, the command for them to love God was correct and was directed at them loving the God they knew, not the God they believed. There was little faith and belief demanded of the Israelites, for God made Himself known to them with His mighty right arm. Faithfulness was what was expected of them because they themselves were all witnesses of God. A witness God had every intention to continue from generation to generation if only they had abided in His word so that He could continuously bless them from His dwelling place at the temple of Solomon.

However, when they turned their backs on the God they knew and turned to gods they had not known, that was when idolatry began. For which of the gods of Canaan, Assyria or Babylon delivered them, provided for them and fulfilled their promises with great and mighty miracles that God alone can do? So it is clear from the library records that God’s intention from the beginning was to raise up a nation of holy people who know their God, not people who believe their God. Except those people did not want to know Him… they did not want Him to speak to them directly, but rather, through an intermediary. They wanted to know about God… but not know God. So for the Israelites, it was no barrier for them to turn to the gods of other nations they heard about, for after all, they preferred idolatry rather than relationship. They preferred to love what they believed rather than love whom they knew… idolatrous love rather than true love.

It is just as clear that it is the intention of Jesus that all who come to believe in Him come to know Him as well as, if not better than the eleven came to know Him. For He asked the Father for the Holy Spirit to be baptised into all His disciples, and to the Holy Spirit He gave the primary responsibility of discipling all who would believe in Him, with the disciples including the eleven to assist the Holy Spirit in making disciples of all nations.

If Pergamum was like hell on Earth, for that is where or was where Satan lived, then the coming days of distress will make all of Earth seem to be like hell on Earth more than ever. As such, no matter where we are, our situation will be like the church of Pergamum, living where Satan has his house, and if Pergamum experienced persecution, even martyrdom of their witnesses, so likewise we will experience in our days no matter where we are.

However, the answer for these coming days of distress is not a fearful, wishful hope of rapture before it all starts, but rather, a determined, focussed preparation where everyone who comes and remains is discipled so that, from the least to the greatest, every member of the congregation has a witness and testimony for Jesus, not just a faith for Him. And since that witness is what permits the power to be made available by the necessity of the word of Jesus, then such congregations will be and can be ready for the coming days of distress.

Having the congregation made up of witnesses rather than just believers is the best safeguard against people “…who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality,” and “…those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” A person who has come to know Jesus after he believed, who personally knows of his own deliverance, experienced His provision and fulfillment in his own life, who has been able to do what Jesus has been doing because of the truth of His words that he has heard and practised, will not be interested in eating the food (that is, the teaching) dedicated to practices of gods he does not know.

Balaam was the prophet who sold out for the love of gold, and mammon is the god we are commanded not to serve. Disciples who can multiply food, change water to good wine and so on will not be worshippers of mammon or money, although they may be users of them. If we can travel like Jeremiah did, no ministry would need a private jet. If we can control the weather like Jesus did and stop the wind and rain, we would have no need of expensive cathedrals and so on, but use money because it is convenient and not because it is a necessity. As we can see, and I will be the first to admit, we are a long way off the mark. However, at least the change has begun.

The sexual immorality that will concern the Galileans is not the sexual immorality that James advised us to avoid. Indeed, the immorality of the earthly type is almost unavoidable, for Jesus by His word turned the act of adultery from an action to a thought and a look… and there are none who are not guilty of having looked and thought if the truth be known… but thank God we are to overcome a sexual immorality far greater than that of the flesh and that is the immorality of bearing children who do not know their Father, like a prostitute.

The Galilean congregations must ensure that the Father Jesus came to reveal is made known to all believers and disciples, especially the believers who are the children. It is the children of prostitutes who do not know who their father is, and any congregation that does not ensure that the children know who God their Father is is a prostitute church, and that is true immorality. Congregations that raise up believers ignorant of who God the Father is are guilty of the sexual immorality of the Balaamites.

As Jesus said, “For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well,” it is the children of the prostitute churches, being ignorant of their Father’s capability of love, provision and grace, who will run after the teachings of the Balaamites, which teaches them to serve money and to look after their tomorrows, when the Lord has said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Now every congregation where believers are allowed to live their eternal life now by coming to know God and Jesus Christ whom He sent, will not fail to have their people come to know God the Father as revealed by Jesus Christ. It is such congregations that will be able to put aside the teachings and practices of the Balaamites and Nicolaitans.

As such, this innovation is really no innovation… as are all the innovations not really innovations, but rather, the way it was meant to be and would have been if only the eleven went to Galilee that morning with the women and saw what Jesus had prepared for them on that mountain. However, these ‘innovations’ will bring into existence congregations today that, when fully developed, will behave as if the eleven did go and left behind for us epistles that were written by men and women who have been in the presence of the glory of God for 40 days and nights just like Moses was, so that our epistles would have been as detailed and precise as Moses’ epistle was to Israel. Indeed, those seven letters of Jesus would not have had to be written at all… for the church that is made up of sons and daughters who are led by the Spirit needs no correction from the Lord Jesus Himself, otherwise the Lord would be correcting the Lord, and that will never be.

The people who not only know their God, but the family, the children who know their Father, will not only resist the beast and the false prophet, but will know how to overcome them. Indeed, those who know their God and their Father as Jesus knows His God and His Father, will show no fear to those condemned ones, and indeed through them these words of Paul will find their ultimate fulfillment: …I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the Gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. Although Paul admonished his charges, the Philippians, with those words, Galileans and elects must stand firm, not in one spirit, but in the one Spirit, the Holy Spirit, contending not as one man for the faith of the Gospel, but contending as one (male and female) for the knowledge of the Gospel.

Elect, the congregations to be raised by the Holy Spirit’s Workshop do not contend for the faith of the Gospel, but for the knowledge of the Good News that they are witnesses to. The Gospel that they know, which has caused blind eyes to see, lame men to walk and so on, all done not only in their presence, but done by them… in fulfillment of John 14.12. They know not to fear the beast or the false prophet, for they know that greater is He who is in them and in whom they abide – the Holy Spirit. Indeed, like Moses’ snake, which ate the snake of the Egyptian magicians, the shenanigans of the beast and the false prophet are tolerated by the elect and the Galilean congregations scattered throughout the world, because they have to be allowed to do what they do to fulfill Scriptures to test the faith of all who live by faith in God whom they believe, but are not already in the eternal life. Now that is by knowledge. Jesus spoke of those who would receive eternal life in the age to come… therefore those who have received their eternal life now are in the age to come… and those of this age can no more harm or overcome those who are of the next age than a man is able to throw a stone at the moon and hit it.

Through the knowledge of God and Jesus whom He has sent with the power of the Holy Spirit, the ways of the elect and the Galilean congregations are and will be higher than the ways of the prostitute and her daughters and their prodigies – the beast and the false prophet – as the Heavens are above the Earth. Such is our God and our Father who knows to give the Holy Spirit without limit to all who ask and speak the word of God. For John the Baptist has testified… For the One whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.

A congregation that has been brought up on a holy diet of listening and practising the words of Jesus until they succeed and know for themselves, not believe, that His words are truth, has the Spirit without limit. They are those whom John described as… Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life… but more than that, they are living and using that eternal life now and not later.

In ensuring everyone is discipled from the moment they believe and coached in their practice unceasingly from repentance to transfiguration, we can only succeed in raising up a congregation that Jesus will not “…soon come… and… fight against them with the sword of My mouth,” and also one that will cause Him to come and fight for them with the sword of His mouth… even as they will witness the capture of the beast and the false prophet and witness their followers be …killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the Rider on the horse…

The blow against mammon has been struck, can you not see it now… can you not perceive it now? So repent if you are still holding onto the teachings of the Balaamites… repent of all sexual immorality and teach the children about the Father Jesus came to reveal to us. Cast aside the practices of the Nicolaitans and their teachings with the hatred Jesus has for those practices and teachings, as the Holy Spirit makes it known to you. And prepare to stand firm in the knowledge of His Name and His Person, for Jesus never intended that we should remain believers only, but that we come to know Him and God who sent Him… now!

With the innovations to deal with the Nicolaitans and Balaamites in place, the time to introduce the innovation that will deal with that false prophetess, Jezebel, who like her partner misled the servants of Jesus into sexual immorality and eating food sacrificed to idols, can be initiated. Again see that it is servants who can be misled… those who work for their Master and Lord… but sons and daughters who work for their Father cannot be misled by her teachings and practices. And so let us prepare for the daughters of God who will pull the skirt of this profane one over her head and reveal her shameful nakedness to all and sundry.

Indeed, what would have happened for the women who accompanied the eleven to Galilee that morning if only there were eleven men who actually believed the message of the women? If only they were as believing of women as Adam was of Eve. Selah.